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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The highlight of today was when I walked out of my room at a mid-Sussex health centre to call my first patient, only for the receptionist to shout to me that I had something on my leg. I panicked, thinking she meant a spider, but it transpired that Amelie had stuck self-adhesive letters to the back of my trousers. Fortunately they didn't spell anything, but the first letter was F so it could have been a lot worse.

To be honest, it was the second trouser-related disaster I'd encountered that morning, after Toby demonstrated why toddlers shouldn't be given access to pens...

Not only has he attempted some highly advanced tattooing, but he appears to have given himself jaundice. In one foot only.

As it happens, Toby's not the only one with strange purple markings on his instep. I came home from work yesterday afternoon to both good news and bad news. The good news is that Lisa's got some more nearly-new shoes that I might be able to sell on eBay, on the grounds that she no longer has any use for them. The bad news is that it's because she can't walk.

It's a well known fact that Lisa's about as stable as a vertigo sufferer in clown shoes, so she regularly takes tumbles down stairs, over stools, and across open spaces with no obstacles whatsoever. She's actually been overdue for another trip of a lifetime, and yesterday she had a spring in her step (as opposed to Megablocks in her boots), so it came as no surprise to hear that like Jack and Jill before her, she'd headed up the hill to fetch our pale daughter, only to fall down, break her gown, and see Am come tumbling after.

Or, to put it another way, she sprained her ankle walking Amelie home from school, and nearly landed them both in the road. Amelie informed me that she was the one more badly injured, and couldn't understand why no one was giving her any sympathy, particularly as the whole thing was Mummy's fault, but I think it was because Lisa was the one who ended up in the gutter, unable to move.

Anyhoo, the upshot of it all is that Lisa's now sporting a purple, swollen foot that she can't put a lot of weight on. And despite what the council might think, she doesn't actually own a mobility scooter. Which meant she couldn't take Amelie to school this morning. I had to head into mid-Sussex with an F-word on my backside, so I couldn't take her either. And our nearest friend has hurt her back, and was struggling to get her own child to school, never mind ours as well.

But as luck would have it, my Mum was already due to come over today, so we suggested that she might like to experience the drive at a far more ungodly hour, get here two hours earlier than planned, and drag our daughter up the hill before five-to-nine. And, foolishly, she agreed. She even stayed around long enough to pick Amelie up this afternoon.

Lisa attempted to book Amelie into the school's Breakfast Club for tomorrow morning, which would enable me to drop her off before heading to another clinic, but they were fully booked, presumably with kids who look like Molly Ringwald and like dancing on tables to 80s music. So as things stand right now, we're looking at either a miraculous bit of healing, or a taxi. And my money's on the latter. Quite literally.